Atlanta is called The City of Trees. That’s not a good thing — for insurance companies.
Increasingly, insurers have sent letters to customers warning them that their homeowners polices could get cancelled. Why? Trees looming over their homes are an unacceptable risk.
The notices warn homeowners to cut back the offending limbs or find another insurer.
But two I spoke with got cancelled anyway.
It’s the beauty of Google Earth, drones and other aerial imagery. Insurers can surreptitiously spy on your house to determine if you’re insurance worthy.
Now, aerial surveillance is nothing new, but insurance companies have gotten tougher with their underwriting procedures. Hurricanes in the Southeast and wildfires in the West have made the game dicier than it once was.
Local arborists told me that insurers’ concerns with trees has grown exponentially in the past 18 months.
“In 2023, there were a trickle of letters going out; in 2024 the tap opened up,” said James Rhynold, an Atlanta resident who runs Dad’s Tree Care, a pruning and tree removal service. “Not only are they asked to prune trees, but other (homeowners) are being dropped straight out.”
One who was dropped was Ross Cavitt, a former WSB-TV news reporter and current spokesman for Cobb County government. Late last year, he got a “mysterious cancellation” from Farmers Insurance saying “your home policy no longer meets our eligibility requirements.”
Farmers, in letters to the Georgia Insurance Commissioners office, said there was debris on Cavitt’s roof and that nearby trees presented “unacceptable exposure.”
Ross Cavitt
Ross Cavitt
Cavitt had his roofer write a letter saying the roof still had lots of mileage left. Didn’t matter. Goodbye, valued customer.
He got another company to insure his home. But recently, they jacked up his rates, so he plans to go shopping. To make sure trees don’t present a problem again, he had 10 (most of them pines) taken down. It cost $10,400.
“If you drive through the neighborhood, lots of people are in the same boat,” Cavitt said of his Cobb County neighborhood.
It’s called North Forest.
Ross Cavitt
Ross Cavitt
Hal Jacobs lives 20 miles south near Decatur in a woodsy enclave called Forrest Hills (the “Forest” has two Rs, meaning it’s a proper name, not a woods). For weeks, he has fought cancellation after sending photos of his property, as requested, to his company — Safeco.
After going back and forth with Safeco, he’s decided to cut back two water oaks behind his home, as well as a sweetgum and a maple. One of the “trims,” he was told, might endanger one of the oaks.
It should cost about $2,000 but he’s not sure if it will satisfy the company.
“It’s part of the problem, part of the uncertainty,” Jacobs said while giving me a tour of the trees, adding that what’s acceptable for the insurance company is opaque. “It’s like living in China: You don’t know where the line is.”
Another Safeco customer, Noel Olken, from the Decatur area, told me he was unceremoniously dropped. It didn’t matter, he said, if he was “cutting or not cutting.”
Safeco told me, “Home inspections have long been a standard in the insurance underwriting process.” And, no, they don’t use drones.
A Farmers exec said, “similar to other insurers, we regularly review the properties” through several methods including “third-party aerial imagery captured by satellites and fixed-wing aircraft at high altitudes.”
Many customers, he said, have successfully appealed.
Cavitt went to the Georgia Insurance Commissioner’s office for help and received a letter saying: “The company advised that the debris buildup and tree overhung were not ideal conditions under their underwriting guidelines to enable them to offer continued coverage under the policy. We regret we could not obtain a more favorable response.”
Jenni Girtman
Jenni Girtman
“Our hands are kind of tied right now” in such cases, Bryce Rawson, the commissioner’s spokesman, told me this week. He pointed to a state law allowing cancellation if there’s “a change in the risk which substantially increases any hazard the policy insures against.”
The argument is that trees grow, increasing the hazard.
Rhynold, the tree service guy, got his own letter from Travelers. But he knew a guy — himself — and he was able to make enough trims to keep the policy.
Rhynold lives in Kirkwood, an old Atlanta neighborhood with even older trees. He said Atlanta’s tree ordinance says you can’t prune more than 25% of a tree’s canopy. “If you do, you’ll damage the integrity of the tree,” he said.
“I’ve heard (insurers) are using AI on their client lists” using a percentage of roof being covered by tree canopy, he said. Most of the 40 or so homeowners he has dealt with on this concern have canopy covering perhaps 30% of their structure.
He added, “Of course, this is a boon for me. But I’m trying to be straight with people.”
Peter Jenkins, an Atlanta-area arborist, has had dozens of clients with insurance concerns and says insurance-mandated cutting can damage trees.
“Some companies want to cut (branches) straight up from the houseline” leaving a clearance around the structure, he said. “To say all branches over the roof must be cleared, that’s ridiculous.”
“If they want to be accurate, they need to look at the base of the tree to see if it’s healthy, not an image over the roof,” Jenkins said. “There’s a lot that goes into tree care that insurance companies know nothing about.”
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